SOUTH BEND — The developer of the former Inwoods Store building received approval Thursday, March 27, for an agreement to renovate the long-vacant store into commercial space on the first floor, with an arts market for artists to sell or conduct classes. A restaurant also is planned for the first floor in the project’s first phase.
Sarah Hill, of Penny Hill Homes LLC, agreed to spend at least $1.44 million on the renovation of the former local retailer and Sears store at 425 S. Michigan St. In turn, the Redevelopment Commission‘s agreement said the city would provide up to $350,000 for roof replacement to shore up the building.
Hill told the city the work would take two years to complete.
Hill has indicated the project’s first phase will secure the 50,000-square-foot, three-story building from years of water damage. The project will take about two years to complete the first phase, she added. Penny Hill Homes bought the building in late 2022 for $500,000.
The building was built in 1927 and served as a Sears store until 1949, when the national retailer moved into a new 135,000-square-foot, three-story store at the southwest corner of Western Avenue and Lafayette Boulevard.
According to Tribune archives, Inwoods opened as a grocery store in 1917 and later evolved into a department store. It moved into the former Sears store on South Michigan Street in March 1952 and remained there until it permanently closed Dec. 31, 1989.
The Monroe Street Artists Studios building to the south will offer potential vendors for the Inwoods building, Hill said.
Penny Hill Homes’ project is part of a three-group redevelopment collaboration that received $3.7 million from the South Bend-Elkhart Regional Development Authority as one of 13 projects that received money in this year’s Indiana Regional Acceleration and Development Initiative (READI) 2.0 program.
Email Tribune staff writer Greg Swiercz at gswiercz@gannett.com.
